Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Hail Mary, Full of Ideas!

For those of you who are not football fans, a "Hail Mary" is a desperate pass into the end zone, when your team is behind and the clock is winding down. The quarterback just heaves the ball up in the air and hopes for the best.

Speaking of Hail Marys, I've gotten into the habit of desperately tossing ideas into my posts, not necessarily knowing what they mean, but trusting that they mean something, and that some alert and nimble-fingered wide receptacle of a reader will catch them. This ensures that I am always on the edge of what I (don't) know. However, it can also mean that I am not only crossing over a line into the area of what I don't yet know, but into what is unknowable or even what is Raccoonically incorrect. I mean, assuming there is a cutting edge, then it must by definition cut both ways, into those things that are novel and true as well as those that are just trivial or false novelties, like Black Liberation Theology or Andrew Sullivan.

In the Raccoon nonderstanding, the more one truly knows, the more one doesn't know -- the latter of which is a very different thing from "the less one knows." Let me explain with an absurcular analogy.

If what we call reality is a sphere that contains all of our knowledge of whatever kind, the more genuine knowledge we possess, the more the sphere expands. But obviously, as the sphere expands, the surface area where it shades off into the unknown expands. Since the "unknown" is literally infinite and dwarfs the known, all our profane knowledge combined is just a drop in the bucket we'll kick way before it's ever full or even emptied. No matter how much of the unknown we colonize with human knowledge, it will only "grow" in size. (The infinite cannot literally grow, being that it is already infinite.)

As an example of a Hail Mary, just yesterday a cryptic thought spontaneously occurred to me which I tossed into the post: real thought is the essence of prayer, linking man with what is timeless and eternal.

What is this supposed to mean? Is it true? Yes, I'm pretty sure it's true, but I don't yet know why. Rather, there is simply a sense of certainty, a feeling that if I try to flesh it out, I will find that it is backed by the full faith and credit of forces greater than myself, forces that "sponsored" or provoked the thought to begin with. In other words, a thought is like a wave tossed up by the ocean. Or, put it this way: where there is a wave, you can assume there is an ocean in your notion somewhere.

As a brief aside, most of the things people call "thoughts" aren't actually proper thoughts at all. This may come as a shock to you, but most people have never had an original thought in their life, any more than they have made a witty comment. For example, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are presumably smart guys, but I challenge anyone to identify an original thought in their vacuous books. There is no question in my mind that Brak has more original thoughts than Barack, whose defunct economic and social ideas (to paraphrase Tom Sowell) come straight out of the 1960s, and whose discredited foreign policy ideas come out of the 1930s. Nothing novel there.

To extend the ocean analogy, these sorts of pseudo-thoughts are more like ripples on the surface caused by superficial atmospheric changes, like wind over the water. For example, I largely see the MSM as a sort of vast wind machine that blows over the waters and stirs things up so that no one is aware of the more enduring waves, let alone the tsunamis off in the distance. In addition, when the water is stirred up in this manner -- what I call "the daily tempest" or liberal hysteria of the hour -- few people have the calm detachment necessary to see through to the depths.

Also, just like the ocean, there are stable "currents" that persist through time. On the one hand, these can be analogous to structures rooted in timeless truth, such as the U.S. Constitution; or, they can be analogous to what Buddhists call "samskaras" or what a Raccoon calls mind parasites, just collective illusions and neuroses, like manmade global warming. Indeed, the whole psychic current of leftism has become a sort of fluid structure that is almost impossible to eradicate. Put up a barrier, and just like water, it goes around it and takes on a new form. Marxists become "progressives," or reds turn green. Progressivism is never rooted in proper thought; to the contrary, it is a thought system imposed upon reality , like painting the sky or tattooing a beautiful woman.

As an example of where "unconscious" thought can take you, the image just popped into my head of Jesus walking on the water. What does this have to do with anything? Again, we don't yet know, but it feels to me as if this is a potentially fruitful thought, and that it is not just arbitrary or all wet. In short, it requires faith on my part that I can complete the thought and reach the end zone. Here we go again: Hail Mary, full of great ideas!

Recall that while Jesus is off huddling by himself and meditating on his mountaintop, the disciples set sail aboard a tiny ship. What begins as a three hour tour -- a three hour tour -- turns into a fateful trip, as the weather starts getting rough and the tiny ship is tossed. Frankly, if not for the receptivity of the faithful crew, the Minnow would be lost -- the Minnow would be lost.

A voice is heard: It is I, Gilligan: be not afraid.

Who is I? According to Tomberg, it is the I AM; the act of walking on water speaks to the fact that I AM is "not the one borne, but the bearer, not the one led, but the leader, not the one supported but the support." And this act is paralleled in "the wonder of pure faith, unsupported by anything but inner certainty, which stands above the threatening sea of relativity and doubt, and goes its own way." In short, faith is what floats your boat on its watery trek from the terrestrial to the celestial shore, or from birth to Birth. It is what allows one to complete the eternal pass into the sacred end zone.

We were born before the wind / Also younger than the sun / Ere the bonnie boat was won, as we sailed into the mystic / Hark now hear the sailors cry / Smell the sea and feel the sky / Let your soul and spirit fly, into the mystic --Van Morrison, Into the Mystic

True, we have to be here in this ocean in order to grow and evolve, but it's tempting to remain a land lubber and just hold onto terra firma. This is to remain a seed without water, a temptation that has a certain appeal, since to live without being sea'd is in a sense to remain in a state of infinite potential: so long as you are nothing, you are potentially anything and everything, just like an infant.

This is the appeal of the latest nothing, a titanic fissure of a man, a Barely Nobama, if that. Ah, the Mendacity of Hype. Now that he has become something, he's as guilty as the rest of us, and every bit as thoughtless. This dinghy is sinking fast.

Floating upstream alongside the ancient celestial trail, out from under the toilsome tablets of time, cast your I on the meager image below. So long. So short! Whoosh! There went your life, mate. Returning to the Oneself, borne again to the mysterious mamamatrix of our birthdeath, our winding binding river empties to the sea. --The Coonifesto

Rare indeed is this human birth. The human body is like a boat, the first and foremost use of which is to carry us across the ocean of life and death to the shore of immortality. The Guru is the skillful helmsman; divine grace is the favorable wind. If with such means as these man does not strive to cross the ocean of life and death, he is indeed spiritually dead. --Srimad Bhagavatam

31 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Actually Obama expressly rejects New Deal & Great Society liberalism. As he explains in his books, private efforts are more effective than public & especially federal policies with regard to the poor. In addition, he also argues that welfare guarantees are destructive to the economy, and that policies that let the free market work are the superior remedy to persistent poverty. No wonder Wall Street loves him.

Dr. Sowell is wrong on this. He basis his claim that Obama supports New Deal & Great Society liberalism on the National Journal "most liberal ranking." However, of the 99 votes the National Journal looked at, only the minimum wage hike he supported can be said to represent this "old school" liberalism. His votes are largely reformist - ie, he voted to allow the government to negotiate the prices of drugs covered under the prescription drug benefit. That is a far cry from paying people not to work.

I don't want you to become too frustrated during the Obama presidency, is why I bring this up. You remember the "Morning in America" ad right? The Asian kids, the black kids, the white kids, etc., all playing in the park? That is when Obama came of age, in the 1980s, that optimistic vision of America is what he is interested in, not the liberal party line. His partisan line is essentially small government liberalism: libertarian & market forces should dominate domestic policy, the national interest should be defined as supporting democracy internationally. In other words, he learned from his environment - he's the young people from the 80s now approaching middle age. The talk of "60s liberalism, New Deal liberalism" in other words, will increasingly be talk in the retirement home lounge.

Again, wow! True prayer is thinking God's thoughts after Him -- realizing the Reality. "My thoughts are higher than your thoughts," God says. Vertical and lifting us out of the flatland. With our thinking elevated, we receive revelation. With revelation comes a point of faith -- the place to stand from which we can move mountains, or that gives us something solid on which to stand when the common horizontal ground of our being is submerged.

"It is hard to see how a candidate who finds inspirational the claim that "white folks' greed runs a world in need" can fully distance himself from Wright's anti-white racism.

"As I've written before, the common thread that ties Obama's views to Wright's is black liberation theology, which sees the Christian mission as bringing justice to oppressed people through political activism, and emphasizes the racial aspect of oppression. In effect, it is an amalgam of Christianity, radical left-wing ideology, and black militancy. Obama's autobiography supports my view that, in all likelihood, "only this brand [of Christianity] could [have brought] a left-wing political activist like Obama to Jesus."

There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president -- especially not at a time when the threat of international terrorists with nuclear weapons looms over 300 million Americans.

Barack Obama has already indicated that he wants judges who make social policy instead of just applying the law. He has already tried to stop young violent criminals from being tried as adults.

Although Senator Obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things -- using the mantra of "change" endlessly -- the cold fact is that virtually everything has says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s.

Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the 1960s.

We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment. During the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day.

The violence and destruction were concentrated not where there was the greatest poverty or injustice but where there were the most liberal politicians, promoting grievances and hamstringing the police.

Internationally, the approach that Senator Obama proposes -- including the media magic of meetings between heads of state -- was tried during the 1930s. That approach, in the name of peace, is what led to the most catastrophic war in human history.

"real thought is the essence of prayer, linking man with what is timeless and eternal."

How did I let that slip by yesterday? Well… let me cut in now and take a whirl at dancing with it - Real thought is observing the Picture which the assembling puzzle is made from, grasping that some lost piece of an idea integrates into the larger truth, as with finding the puzzle piece with some edge of yellow and white that connects and completes other previously lost pieces of flowers and cloud into the puzzle's border and completes and builds another portion of it; the larger the newly integrated pieces, the larger connection is revealed through the idea made visible, but also the larger the connection that is made with what the puzzle is a picture of.

Real thought, original or not, connects us via our mind, and our choice(which is our central action in living) to look upon, think and grasp reality, into the larger Truth of the One Cosmos, into the larger One that is Truth undivided.

Yesterday Obama made a statement about what his mentor said a day earlier."His comments were not only divisive and destructive, I believe they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate,"

As a person who looks inside to where I am at fault when making apologies, I naturally thought what he meant was that Wright was fueling the hate America conspiracy freaks like the 911 "truthers", America created aids to commit black genocide, America is a terrorist state similar to AlQaeda, etc.Today I was presented another view which when I think about it makes more sense. Since definitionally a leftist is never at fault, never looks to himself as the cause of division and that it is always someone else who is the cause of the problem, he was actually talking about what he perceives as the hateful right wing.You know, the people who are able to see through the charade to things of which he is totally unaware due to a lack of self appraisal.Possibly some astute journalist could ask him to clarify who he is speaking of. Nah!

aninnymouse said..."he voted to allow the government to negotiate the prices of drugs covered under the prescription drug benefit. That is a far cry from paying people not to work."

That is no difference at all. Allowing the gov't to negotiate the prices, is no different than letting Don Corleone negotiate what he'd like you to do with your business; when force is used or implied in negotiating a contract it is called doing so under duress or color of authority, and is invalidated on that basis - unless of course you are the gov't which can say 'oh... no force here, no threats... they can agree or lose their business's and go to jail, their free to choose'.

"I don't want you to become too frustrated during the Obama presidency, is why I bring this up." Someday, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me...

"that optimistic vision of America is what he is interested in, not the liberal party line"thank you Godfather

You are either completely ignorant, a fool, or a liar – keep in mind that you won’t always be anonymous.

"Wright's anti-semitic, anti-American, hardcore Marxist radical hatred was entirely occluded from Obama, the world, and most especially the NYT until yesterday. It came as a complete shock to one and all, and no one should hold it against Obama that he cultivated a mutually advantageous political partnership with a Nazi for 20 years. Now he's "repudiated" the Nazi, and we all know that you can consort with Nazis for almost all of your adult life and then simply "repudiate" them at a press availability and the issue goes away entirely.

"When Obama felt that Wright was defensible "in the context" of racial divides and the black church, he was defensible in the eyes of the MSM. When Obama felt he was no longer so defensible, the MSM agreed he wasn't." --Ace

Rereading the post (since either you keep adding things or I keep noticing things I missed the first time through), this paragraph stood out for me the second time around:

"True, we have to be here in this ocean in order to grow and evolve, but it's tempting to remain a land lubber and just hold onto terra firma. This is to remain a seed without water, a temptation that has a certain appeal, since to live without being sea'd is in a sense to remain in a state of infinite potential: so long as you are nothing, you are potentially anything and everything, just like an infant."

This is apropos of Walt's series from last week, and also describes so well the mentality of many leftists, who instead of being drawn to Truth, Beauty and Goodness are hooked on youth, booty and 'hoodness.

Yo, We at warWe at war with terrorism, racism, and most of all we at war with ourselves(Jesus Walks)God show me the way because the Devil trying to break me down(Jesus Walks with me) with me, with me, with me [fades]

You know what the Midwest is?Young & RestlessWhere restless (Niggas) might snatch your necklaceAnd next these (Niggas) might jack your LexusSomebody tell these (Niggas) who Kanye West isI walk through the valley of the Chi where death isTop floor the view alone will leave you breathless Uhhhh!Try to catch it Uhhhh! It's kinda hard hardGetting choked by the detectives yeah yeah now check the methodThey be asking us questions, harass and arrest usSaying "we eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast"Huh? Yall eat pieces of shit? What's the basis?We ain't going nowhere but got suits and casesA trunk full of coke rental car from AvisMy momma used to say only Jesus can save usWell momma I know I act a foolBut I'll be gone 'til November I got packs to move I Hope

[Hook x2](Jesus Walks)God show me the way because the Devil trying to break me down(Jesus Walks with me)The only thing that that I pray is that my feet don't fail me now(Jesus Walks)And I don't think there is nothing I can do now to right my wrongs(Jesus Walks with me)I want to talk to God but I'm afraid because we ain't spoke in so long

To the hustlers, killers, murderers, drug dealers even the strippers(Jesus walks with them)To the victims of Welfare for we living in hell here hell yeah(Jesus walks with them)Now hear ye hear ye want to see Thee more clearlyI know he hear me when my feet get wearyCause we're the almost nearly extinctWe rappers are role models we rap we don't thinkI ain't here to argue about his facial featuresOr here to convert atheists into believersI'm just trying to say the way school need teachersThe way Kathie Lee needed Regis that's the way I need JesusSo here go my single dog radio needs thisThey say you can rap about anything except for JesusThat means guns, sex, lies, video tapesBut if I talk about God my record won't get played Huh?Well let this take away from my spinsWhich will probably take away from my endsThen I hope this take away from my sinsAnd bring the day that I'm dreaming aboutNext time I'm in the club everybody screaming out

(Jesus Walks)God show me the way because the devil trying to break me down(Jesus Walks)The only thing that that I pray is that my feet don't fail me now(Jesus Walks)And I don't thing there's nothing I can do now to right my wrongs(Jesus walks with me... fades)I want to talk to God but I'm afraid because we ain't spoke in so long

The Motown bass player, James Jamerson, was particularly amazing, as I'm sure Van and Debass can attest. Here's a guy copying his bass line from For Once in My Life. Bear in mind that Jamerson played with one finger.

My old friend from the band days came through town this weekend, he's the Lighting Director for Natalie Cole, they were putting on a private concert for a black tie charity dinner. Hanging out back stage, playfully dueling guitars and throats before and after the show, and then the performance - though I think it was lost on most of the crowd, it was a pleasure watching pro's do their stuff... effortlessly.

BTW, if you haven't paid attention before, watch the lighting in a few concerts and shows, it's amazing what it can do to bring out the music - or disrupt it - the good ones, and my friend is a real good one, brings out the music itself in ways that's hard to peg. Sort of like a sound track on a movie I suppose.

And there’s something about the idea of music and light blended together that’s rather satisfying all its own.

What About Bob?

Who spirals down the celestial firepole on wings of slack, seizes the wheel of the cosmic bus, and embarks upin a bewilderness adventure of higher nondoodling? Who, haloed be his gnome, loiters on the threshold of the transdimensional doorway, looking for handouts from Petey? Who, with his doppelgägster and testy snideprick, Cousin Dupree, wields the pliers and blowtorch of fine insultainment for the ridicure of assouls? Who is the gentleman loaffeur who yoinks the sword from the stoned philosopher and shoves it in the breadbasket of metaphysical ignorance and tenure? Whose New Testavus for the Restavus blows the locked doors of the empyrean off their rusty old hinges and sheds a beam of intense darkness on the world enigma? Who is the Biggest Fakir of the Vertical Church of God Knows What, channeling the roaring torrent of 〇 into the feeble stream of cyberspace? Who is the masked pandit who lobs the first water balloon out the motel window at the annual Raccoon convention? Who is your nonlocal partner in disorganized crimethink? Shut your mouth! But I'm talkin' about bʘb! Then we can dig it!